Chapter 12
Now the Really Hard Part…
My grandmother died when I was twelve. She had told me many things that I didn’t appreciate until I was older. One was to fight with all my might as if it were my last moment on this Earth. Another was never to buy from door-to-door salesmen, which, as it turned out, was never a problem for me and never would be. Another tantalizing edict was that if a man happened to be attacking me, I was to hit him in his testicles, and he would let me go, whereupon when he doubled over, I was to hit him over his head with clutched fists and run like heck. Never mind that I had to use Google to figure out where the testicles were located on a man because I couldn’t spell the word to find it in a dictionary.
The problem was that I couldn’t reach that particular area of the body. I heaved my hips upward and tried to throw the Burned Man off my body. He squeezed harder, and I heard a dreadful pop and felt an intense pain in my ribs. I screamed with anguish as he laughed a splintered, amused noise.
A red mist began to sift into my vision. I forced my body up again, and he came back down on me harder, throwing his body weight into the motion. His thighs compressed my sides, and I swear I heard bones mashing together. For a moment, he let up, and his fetid breath lingered over my face before he put his mouth close to one of my ears. “Tell me where they are,” he said softly. The swelling in his face due to the burns and the broken jaw made the words slurred and nearly undistinguishable.
The waves of pain were welling over me, and I wheezed with exertion. “I won’t tell you,” I cried, forcing the words out. “They’re just two people you’ll have to skip having on your menu!”
He came up straight, staring down at me with those strangely intense blue eyes. I held onto the moment because he was relaxed. One of his hands was still wrapped around my wrists, holding them above my head. His powerful thighs bracketed my torso, keeping me captive. I panted for air as he looked at me.
“I don’t care about the people,” he said at last. He bent closer, and I wanted to vomit with the abjectly awful stench of his breath. “I want those things. Those little bug things. The ones that saved you. Tell me where they are, and I won’t kill you.”
I let the moment stretch out. “Let me up,” I said.
“And you’ll tell me,” he said eagerly. “So I can burn them all to little crisps. Listen to their tiny bodies explode in the fire.” The revolting yearning and anticipation was obvious in his cracked voice.
Dear God above help me, I prayed.
I glared upward and remembered what Nana had said. Fight with everything you’ve got. I knew I had something left. So I bucked again, and twisted my head to where I could reach the forearm of the limb that was restraining my wrists. Then I shoved myself as hard as I could and bit into the soot-stained flesh of his forearm. It tasted worse than the gasoline, but I didn’t let my jaw relax as I clamped down on a mouthful.
It shouldn’t have surprised me that he let me go, but I was when he did exactly that. He abruptly released my wrists and batted at my head with his bad hand while I chomped down on the muscles of his arm. Leaning over me, he yanked and shrieked above me. Blood spilled from his arm and over my face. Sickened, I threw him off me at last, releasing his arm in the process.
Scrambling away, I was twenty feet away before I comprehended that I had my back to him, gasping with the pain I felt and the fear that was inundating me. I turned my head and saw that he was clutching at his arm with his bad hand, trying to stem the flow of blood. From the spurting, I knew that I must have bitten into an artery. Then I realized I still had a chunk of him in my mouth, and I spit it out as I tried to keep from gagging. Wicked yuck.
I reached for the knife in my belt and drew it out without pretense. It was one of the sharp daggers from the last beach house, and it was going to keep the man from coming after me evermore. One way or another.
Using his teeth and some of his scrubs the man managed to wrap something around his forearm. He bit the cloth with his mouth and pulled it taut across his flesh. I didn’t offer to help as I stood up slowly, never looking away from him.
He rose up, keeping his blue eyes on me as I stood there. My shoulders quivered with effort. I was fully exhausted, and my muscles felt like warmed-over rubber. If the man had any moxie left in him, I could only hope to slash or stab him somewhere in his chest with the knife. Perhaps I could aim for the jugular in his throat. As I made my deadly plans to meet him once again I could see the sheer enmity of his gaze.
Hate. Utter hatred washed from him in a roaring river of bitterness and loathing. If the firefly pixies were on his top ten list of hated things, then I had just been added and gone up on the numerical order. For a moment, I could see that he was calculating his odds of successfully attacking me again. It was a protracted second full of powerless expectation. But suddenly, he glanced over his shoulder, and then he craned his neck to look into the distance. As he turned to face me, his face distorted into a mask of heated rage. Then furious indecision boiled over his expression. Despite his makeshift bandage, the blood continued to drip down his good hand, pooling at his feet, and I hoped for him to pass out.
If he had, then I didn’t know what it said about my morality and ethics because there was no way that I was going to put a tourniquet on his arm. I wasn’t going to stitch up the bite that I had so happily put there. If he conked out on the asphalt, then he could lie there and die.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to pass out. His eyes fumed with vehement concentration. His shoulders shuddered with the effort to remain still. “Later,” he said to me in a fervent hiss.
“Don’t come near me again,” I said back, barely keeping rein on my temper. “Maybe I couldn’t kill you today. Maybe you could have gotten the best of me. Not next time. I’ll have eyes behind my back. And you,” I took a moment to do something I rarely did, I sneered expressively, “can kiss two round and rosy parts of my anatomy.”
He lunged at me and then stopped with a petulant growl of uncontrolled resentment, pulling up short a few feet from where he had started. His lips curved into that horrid smile, causing the splits in his face to leak with clear fluid once again. “Later,” he said again.
I watched him as he limped away, and I turned to ensure that he was keeping his distance from me. He disappeared around the bend of the highway to the north, hobbling off to his provisional haunt to contrive a new assault.
I sat down on the asphalt and shook with the effort to keep myself mentally in one piece. I didn’t know if I could kill that man, but I was going to make certain that he didn’t catch me in the state I was in ever again.
The sun was up in the sky, and the plumes of smoke were drifting off to the south. It didn’t seem like such a horrible day after all. The Burned Man, however, wasn’t dead, and I knew he could return to torment me. But on this day, I had saved Zach’s life, although he would probably never know it.
The horde of firefly pixies swarmed over me again, buzzing incessantly around me, chattering at me in irate tones. Ironically, it occurred to me that they weren’t acting nocturnal at that moment. “You should go and get some rest, girls,” I muttered ungratefully. “That guy’s not going to do anything bad for at least a few more days.” I hope, I said on the inside.
Several pixies keened in front of me as they hovered in place. They were trying to get me to move I finally grasped. Finally, I got up again and went back to Kara’s bicycle. I affixed the axe on the rack, put the dagger back into my belt, and awkwardly reloaded the crossbow so that it could rest on the handlebars at the ready position. I kept looking north, but I could see nothing moving.
The remainder of the sign finally fell with a booming echo that made me jump. The flames had died to smoldering bits of red and gold, leaving only blackened metal supports. I climbed back on and wondered how I was going to ride without falling over. My legs were shaking. My arms were quivering, and the place around my torso where he had squeezed me was simmering with malicious pain.
I go
t about a mile before I fell down. For some reason, I couldn’t quite focus nor could I make the bike go fast enough to stay upright. The pixies crowded me again, prattling at me to get up, to get up, and to get up. At least, that was my interpretation. Then they were saying, “Sak! Sak! Sak!” again.
“Yeah, yeah,” I murmured as I regained my footing. “If I had him here, I’d be happy, too.” I climbed onto the bicycle again and had a thought. If the Burned Man had followed me, then I was a barely moving target. I looked back to the north and could see quite a ways down the highway on both sides. Empty. Dead. Nada.
To the south, there were the beginnings of Crescent City. Housing complexes were popping up. Their yards were overgrown, and I noticed a roof had collapsed, and somehow I knew that it wasn’t safe to stop here. I managed to pedal another mile or two before I fell over again.
The pixies were crooning to me. They didn’t sound anxious or desperate but just concerned about my well being. I wanted to tell them that I was going to be all right as soon as I could lie down for a bit, but I couldn’t get the words to come out of my mouth. I looked back to the north again and found nothing to bother me. It seemed, for the moment, it was merely the firefly pixies and me.
To the south was a large building off to the side of the highway. Dimly, I grasped that I had been to the building before. It was the hospital complex that Kara had gone to the day before.
I crept to my feet and swayed there for a minute. I needed some water, and I hadn’t brought any with me. The hospital was close enough and looked like an appropriate place to lie down. Clean beds too, if I could find one that was devoid of empty hospital gowns. I could even give myself some antibiotics if I needed them.
Sluggishly, I thought about my circumstances. The shoulder wound was all right. It hadn’t been ripped open again although it throbbed with the exertions of the act of defending myself. I looked down and couldn’t see any blood. Furthermore, it didn’t feel like it was torn anew. My ribs were screaming with little darts of intense pain. Broken, I decided. Two or more. I could still breathe, and I wasn’t coughing up blood, although it felt as though bones were grinding alarmingly together. My back was aching, but I thought that was because he had knocked me on it when he grabbed me. My legs hurt because he had grabbed them several times. I thought that if I pulled up the pant legs I would see finger-sized bruises all over my ankles and calves. Finally, my face hurt where he had clipped me with his fist, and the muscles in my jaws were sore because I had compressed my teeth together so stalwartly.
My primary problem was that I had overextended myself. Not in a small way either. I had done it in a way that was going to kill me if I wasn’t very careful. Slowly, I looked around me. The hospital appeared blurry as if the building was moving but it wasn’t. Hazily, I recognized that I was slowly rocking back and forth.
I looked back to the north, and I couldn’t see anything at all in the distance. I said to the pixies, “You’d tell me, right, girls? If he was coming after me?”
They warbled at me in response. It didn’t sound like bad news. Of course, it didn’t sound exactly like good news either.
I lurched to Kara’s bicycle and caught it by the handlebar. I dragged it to the edge of the highway and then let it fall down the little hill. I didn’t want any clues that would let the Burned Man know where I had stopped for a breather. I had the feeling that I should cover the bike up with brush or something, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Instead, I knelt on the asphalt for a moment and gathered my strength. The firefly pixies surrounded me anxiously. It was beginning to be hard to breathe. My chest was swelling with pain. The dizziness was starting to overcome me. I let my head fall down and concentrated on regaining my breath.
It came to me that perhaps the Burned Man had won after all. Whatever he had done to me didn’t seem to be having a good effect on my body. I knew that I was drained, but this was beyond tired. I looked down at Kara’s bicycle at the bottom of the incline and saw that I stupidly had pushed the crossbow and the axe down along with the bike. All I had left were the daggers, unless I wanted to climb down there and get the weapons back.
Hah. That wasn’t happening.
I got to my feet again and fell down a few steps later. Then I crawled for a little while. The pixies were my little cheering squad. I’m not sure what they were cheering for, but they were encouraging me to move. When I looked up, it didn’t seem like I was any closer to the hospital than I had been before.
“Sak!” said a pixie from near my ear. It was a triumphant, cheerful sound as if they had personally accomplished something very positive.
I grunted a little. Then I got to where I was resting on my bent knees. My elbows were braced carefully as I tried to get enough oxygen. I whispered, “I’d like him here, girls, but—” I trailed off because I was gasping for air. I finished the thought on the inside. It’s possible that he’s still asleep. He doesn’t know where I am. I didn’t know what time it was, but it was still morning, I thought.
My head came back and looked up at the sun. Maybe not. The sun was awfully high in the sky. More time had passed than I could account for; had I passed out for a while?
The pixies repeated their chant. “Sak! Sak! Sak!”
“Ohh-kay,” I said. The blackness was rushing up along the sides of my vision. It seemed as if there was a tunnel that I was entering, and the walls were getting closer and closer to me. I barely managed to turn my head to the south and blink tiredly. There was someone there.
The person was standing on the pegs of the bicycle. The bike was weaving from side to side as the person pumped vigorously, using their entire body to advance the forward motion of the bicycle. His legs were a blur of activity as he worked. His chestnut hair caught the light and shown like gold in the sun’s rays.
Zach.
And he saw me as well. If anything, his effort increased.
I couldn’t move. I was completely undone. But I could watch. A long way behind Zach, were other figures moving rapidly, as well. Figures? Oh yes, there was more than one. There were at least five. One had short steel gray hair, which I thought was Kara. There was a black-haired man and two brunettes. One was a redhead.
Was I delusional? Maybe Fernie and her two babies would come tromping down the highway next.
Then Zach was only yards away. He didn’t even slow down. With a graceful movement that seemed to be practiced, he stepped from the moving bicycle and let it go as he continued in a run at me. He skidded to a stop before me, falling heavily on his knees, and his hands eagerly grasped my upper arms. Nearby, the bike careened off the road and fell heavily. The pixies shouted approvingly and launched into the air with an innate glee.
I gasped with the pain and then tried to breathe again.
“Sophie!” he yelled in my face. “Where are you bleeding from?”
Bleeding? I panted for air. I wasn’t bleeding. But a distant thought occurred to me. There was blood all over my face from biting the other man. “Not mine,” I got out.
“God,” he swore and gathered me into his arms. He tucked his head into the place between my head and shoulder. The perspiration from him dripped down my shirt and reminded me how he had worked to get here in time to help me. “You stupid…girl,” he muttered as if that was the worst insult he could come up with. Rearing back, he glowered at me, regaining his hold on my upper arms. “You drugged us. How could you do that?”
I was struggling for air. My chest felt as though it had been punched with a wrecking ball. I couldn’t even speak to Zach, much less tell him that I had done it for him. I hadn’t wanted him to die.
Of that I was still certain. If Zach had faced the Burned Man then he would have died. I knew I had done the right thing. The only thing I was going to wrestle with was whether or not I should have killed him when I had my single opportunity.
But life isn’t tied up in neat little packages with pretty bows. The world before the change hadn’t been like that, and the
world after the change wasn’t turning out to be any better in that respect.
It was when my breathing began to sound as if I were rasping helplessly that Zach’s eyes opened wide. I coughed, and a little blood spilled out of my mouth. It was my blood then, and he knew it. The horror in his face was obvious.
The tunnel that was so tight around me narrowed dramatically, and I couldn’t tell if I had really seen Zach or not, much less the panting figures that appeared behind him as I swayed.
Lights out…again.